Thursday, November 10, 2016

Three Interesting Watermans - Part Two

Today let’s have a closer look at the middle example in this shot of interesting Watermans:

This one sports a plain Waterman’s clip:

So, if my theory continues to hold, you would expect to see a “patent applied for” imprint above the clip, and that’s exactly what it has – but in addition to something else:

Patent applied for on the front, definitely made in USA – but sporting patent number 226,746 on the back side. A six-digit patent number can’t be an American patent in the 1924ish range, and this one isn’t: Waterman also patented Larsen’s pencil in Great Britain, where it was issued just a little earlier, on June 23, 1924. That means this one was made in the US, for export to England, between June and October, 1924. That conclusion is confirmed by some interesting markings on the center band:

The “FDW,” as best we know, stands for Frank D. Waterman, who was running the show by 1924. The other markings indicate the band is 9 karat, and made for export to Britain. As for the interesting bit at the nose:

Originally, this was three gold bands – it had 1 ½ when I bought it, but the remainder of one of the other bands fell off and went missing on the ride home. Were all the Waterman 25s made for the British market made to include these, or is this something unusual? I don’t know yet – this is the first one I’ve looked at closely.